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The Mid-Season Report Cards are a subjective look using objective numbers with a look toward the remainder of the season as well. Teams are being reviewed in random order once they reach 6 games.
I’ve gone back and forth most of this season on how to cover Navy & Army. Since they don’t play in a conference, they don’t have quite as compelling a story to tell- 6 wins, they go to a bowl, that’s about it. So they won’t get a lot of discussion here, but the reality is that they’re just as stuck outside the BCS system as the rest of them are, so they’ll be discussed when there’s good reason to do so. As for Navy, they’re out to a very impressive start and appear comfortably headed towards a bowl berth. They lost to Ohio State by only 2 in the season opener and have picked up four wins since then.
- Wins: B. Despite the close loss to OSU, they’ve beaten the teams they should beat and lost to the teams they should have. Solid B. Read Post
The Mid-Season Report Cards are a subjective look using objective numbers with a look toward the remainder of the season as well. Teams are being reviewed in random order once they reach 6 games.
The Toledo Rockets have had an erratic, confusing start to their season. They started out by challenging Purdue before fading late, then stomping Colorado when that was all the rage. Then, for all the firepower they had shown in the first two weeks, they got shut out by Ohio State in week 3. Two mid-major wins later, they get surprised by Western Michigan, who had just lost 38-3 to Northern Illinois.
- Wins: C. After upsetting Colorado, I would have expected Toledo to be 4-2 at this point, and the loss to WMU could haunt them at the end of the season. Read Post
The Vegas prognosticators like Boise State by more than a touchdown, but I suspect it will be closer than that. My guess is that Tulsa will keep close all night long, but Boise should probably win this one with both teams scoring in the 20s.
Why yes, that is what I wrote yesterday shortly before kickoff. And [...]
We’re now closing in on 90 minutes from what may be the biggest non-conference, non-BCS game of the year. Boise State is leaving the comfort of the Blue Field for the third time this season, taking on the Tulsa Golden Hurricane. Both teams rank highly in whatever stat column you look at so we should be [...]
The Mid-Season Report Cards are a subjective look using objective numbers with a look toward the remainder of the season as well. Teams are being reviewed in random order once they reach 6 games.
Today’s theme has unintentionally turned out to be ‘Disappointing MAC Teams.’ The reality of the situation is that the MAC, with a few solid counter-examples, has had a pretty rough out of conference season, and more MAC teams have reached six games than the other conferences, so they make up a lot of this week’s posts. As for Buffalo, this season held a lot of hope- they won the MAC last year, their coach has garnered unprecedented national attention, and the school has left it’s laughingstock ways behind. Unfortunately, they’re sitting at 2-4 and 0-2 in the league after a 4 game losing skid made life difficult.
- Wins: D. The lone 1-A win was in the opening weekend at UTEP, which seemed to signal the start of something good. Instead, the Bulls dropped games to Pitt, UCF, Temple, and MAC powerhouse Central Michigan. All four of these teams might still be good, but that’s still not the start that UB fans had hoped for. Read Post
The Mid-Season Report Cards are a subjective look using objective numbers with a look toward the remainder of the season as well. Teams are being reviewed in random order once they reach 6 games.
I won’t lie, I did not see Idaho coming. I predicted the usual WAC season- Boise runs away with it, Fresno, Hawaii, and maybe Louisiana Tech fight for second and third. And while Idaho hasn’t played any of those four yet, their 5-1 start is impressive nonetheless. Idaho is now just one game short of bowl eligibility and picked up top 25 votes- the first time that’s ever happened in midseason.
- Wins: A. 5 wins, and a not-quite-blown-out loss to Washington is as good a start as Idaho has had in half of forever. They haven’t even won 5 games total since 2000. Several of the wins have been close, but at the end of the day, nobody puts the margin in the win column. Read Post
The Mid-Season Report Cards are a subjective look using objective numbers with a look toward the remainder of the season as well. Teams are being reviewed in random order once they reach 6 games.
Ok, I’ll try to be polite and concise. Miami is really, really bad. They lost their first two games by a combined 90-0, and in fact gave up 125 points before scoring their first. Things have been better since that start, but but not better enough to win a game.
- Wins: F. None, and never closer than 10. Read Post
The Mid-Season Report Cards are a subjective look using objective numbers with a look toward the remainder of the season as well. Teams are being reviewed in random order once they reach 6 games.
The Golden Flashes, despite their name, are one of the lowest profile teams in America this year. They haven’t had much success, but by winning two winnable games, they stay off the 0 and 1 win radar. They didn’t scare any of the BCS teams they played, so no attention on the worldwide leader. They’re sitting at 2-4, not a great start, but really only one point away from being as good as anyone would have expected.
- Wins: D. The schedule hasn’t been easy, but they haven’t faced any Top 25 teams either. They started the season with an 18-0 win over 1-AA Coastal Carolina, and they did beat 0-6 Miami by 10 points. They lost to Bowling Green this weekend on a last second touchdown after leading most of the game. Read Post
The Mid-Season Report Cards are a subjective look using objective numbers with a look toward the remainder of the season as well. Teams are being reviewed in random order once they reach 6 games.
The UTEP Miners might be the strangest team in my jurisdiction. They opened the season with a loss to Buffalo, who has since nose-dived (more later- they’re on the list for today too). They got run out of the building by Texas and Kansas. This past weekend, they lost to a pretty bad Memphis team. Yet somehow, in week 5, they ran roughshod over Houston, who was sitting in between wins over Texas Tech and later Mississippi State. Eleven days later and that game still baffles me. It remains to be seen whether that win alone is enough to get Mike Price off the hot seat.
- Wins: C-. Normally, I’m giving a 2-4 team a D rating, but that win over Houston is worth something. If you take Kansas and Texas out of the equation, they’re 2-2 against non-BCS teams, which isn’t the worst they could have done. Read Post
A rainy night in Monroe, Louisiana set up an engaging, if sloppy, Tuesday night showdown between ULM and Arkansas State. Arkansas State had a terrible first half, but an injury to ULM’s starting QB leveled things a bit in the second. ULM led 16-0 at halftime, but had not had the solid rushing game that I thought they might. When their QB went down, they turned to a ground attack that was crucial in burning time in the fourth quarter. Arkansas State came close, scoring 10 points in the third quarter, and keeping ULM off the board (partially thanks to a missed FG) in the second half. State’s final drive for the win was thrown off when Troy Evans with ULM broke through for two sacks in the final three plays, pushing the Red Wolves back and ending their chances for the tying/winning touchdown.
The win puts Louisiana Monroe out in the conference lead at 3-0, with Troy at 2-0 and Louisiana Lafayette at 1-0. Read Post
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